Arcade appeals to generations of visitors

Tuesday

May 28, 2013 at 12:01 AMMay 28, 2013 at 8:46 PM

PANAMA CITY BEACH — If lights flash and dance everywhere you look, buzzers sound, children laugh and carry fistfuls of prize tickets, and that pinball machine in the back has eaten almost all your beer money — then you’re in FUN-LAND.

ZACK McDONALD / The News Herald

PANAMA CITY BEACH — If lights flash and dance everywhere you look, buzzers sound, children laugh and carry fistfuls of prize tickets, and that pinball machine in the back has eaten almost all your beer money — then you’re in FUN-LAND.

FUN-LAND Arcade and Snack Bar has been in business 63 years to date. And if you ask someone of age to bring their grandkids to the beach, three attractions have identified Panama City Beach over those years: Miracle Strip, Petticoat Junction and FUN-LAND.

“We have third generations that come in,” said Joel McDavid, general manager at FUN-LAND for 12 years. “There are baby boomers that come in to bring their grandkids and say, ‘When I was their age I was in here.’ ”

McDavid reflected on when he was 10 years old, coming to FUN-LAND, never dreaming of one day managing the iconic arcade.

FUN-LAND is the last surviving vestige of the three landmarks that embodied the desire for an amusement park-themed beach. Though technically not an amusement park, the clown logo and outside appearance was intentionally misleading to give the impression of a circus mixed with an amusement park — a marketing method to compete with the Long Beach amusement parks of the day.

Originally opened by Don Remsnider in spring 1950, FUN-LAND is the oldest arcade in North Florida, McDavid said. It was purchased four years later and has been owned by the same family since, only changing hands once from father to son in 1990.

“When I was growing up, we were open 24 hours,” said owner Steven Toronto. “We didn’t have doors, so we couldn’t close if we wanted to. But, over time we gradually started closing at night.”

Eventually rain doors were installed, but the business survived with only a few simple ingredients: a grill, dance floor, jukebox, pinball machines, foosball tables, skee ball, voice-recording machines, photo booths, “test your strength” punching bag gadgets and about anything else coins could be stuck in.

“We are still pretty low-key,” McDavid said. “We don’t advertise. People just walk in from the beach still in their swimsuits and flip-flops, eat lunch and then go back.”

Closing times are still fairly flexible, according to McDavid. It’s usually whenever the last person leaves.

Serendipity

In the late ’80s a hurricane tore holes in a large portion of FUN-LAND’s roof, causing the gift shop to flood, according to Toronto. The destruction was the catalyst for what owners consider one of the businesses’ wisest decisions.

“At that point we had to close the gift shop,” Toronto said.

During repairs the Toronto family took the opportunity to expand the arcade portion to its current dimensions.

“We enlarged the arcade and had space to put more games, which was a great business decision,” Toronto said.

When video games came along, the landscape of FUN-LAND changed drastically. Pinball machines became Pac-Man machines and foosball tables became air hockey tables.

“That’s when the video boom hit and we went from pinball and cranes to electronics,” Toronto said. “And that’s when it really became a popular thing to go to arcades.”

The downside to the video game era was each season several units that had been cash cows became obsolete. Now, each year, Toronto and McDavid acquire new games from an arcade fair in Orlando.

“You see things you wouldn’t believe — some of the technology these days …” McDavid said, trailing off.

The undisputed breadwinner of about 20 years in FUN-LAND remains the Roll A Win — a series of conveyor belts on which the player rolls a coin. If the coin lands on a white strip, without touching the black strips, oodles of tickets are rewarded.

“It does probably five to eight times the business of any game in here every week,” McDavid said.

Closing doors

Business has been successful enough managers could afford to keep the doors open while most other places closed shop from October through March. But, the past two winters saw FUN-LAND closed for the season for the first time.

“The [Deepwater Horizon] oil spill killed us,” McDavid said. “We’d had such a bad summer, when we looked at the numbers, that was the first winter we had to close.”

This, too, turned out to be a fortunate mishap for FUN-LAND, Toronto said. Closing during the off-season saved the business money in slow times.

One of the main reasons operators cited for FUN-LAND’s survival while others have declined is its generational appeal. Vacationing parents can have a beer in the café while the kids roam the arcade, their kids after them can do the same, and their kids after them can do the same and so on.

“We love being on the beach and being part of a business where people will come up to us and say, ‘I’ve been going there for 40 years and I take my grandkids now,’ ” Toronto said.

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